Marcy Winograd, a veteran high school teacher and anti-war activist, will announce her candidacy in the June Special Election in California's 36th congressional district race.

In the recent June, 2010, Democratic Party primary, Winograd received 41% of the vote against now-resigning representative Jane Harman.

Says Winograd, "Our platform, then and now, is Jobs, Not Wars. Each week we spend 2-billion taxpayer dollars on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, while people at home are suffering without adequate jobs, housing, or health care. In Congress, I will fight to put people back to work in productive ways and to protect our social safety net from corporate greed and war profiteering."

Winograd adds, "Now is the time to join the international call for greater democracy, and to restore the people's voice to the people's House."

The founder of Progressive Democrats of America's Los Angeles chapter, Winograd calls herself "the true progressive" in the race.

An educator for fifteen years, Winograd teaches English at Crenshaw High School in South Los Angeles, where she engages her students in civics, journalism, and debate.

Says Winograd, "I am not a career politician, jumping ship in search of a better opportunity. I am a long-time community organizer, rooted in the labor and peace movements. I am here to serve."

Anti-War Activist Enters California Special Election

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Marcy Winograd, an anti-war activist, will join the special election race for California’s 36th district Saturday in Torrance, toward the southern end of the coastal, Los Angeles-area district.

In 2010, Winograd held Rep. Jane Harman to just 59 percent in the Democratic primary. Harman will resign her seat Monday to take over a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Winograd enters a crowded primary field that includes Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn (D), California Secretary of State Debra Bowen (D) and Redondo Beach City Attorney Mike Webb (R). A handful of other Democrats are expected to run as well.

The top two finishers in the all-party primary will advance to the general. Gov. Jerry Brown has two weeks from Monday to set the date for the special election.

Founder of the Los Angeles chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America, Winograd teaches English at Crenshaw High School in South Central Los Angeles.

In a press release, Winograd said her platform would focus on shifting the billions of dollars spent on the military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan to domestic issues that need more funding. “In Congress, I will fight to put people back to work in productive ways and to protect our social safety net from corporate greed and war profiteering,” she said.

“I am not a career politician, jumping ship in search of a better opportunity,” Winograd said. “I am a long-time community organizer, rooted in the labor and peace movements. I am here to serve.”

The first poll of voters in California’s 36th district shows a neck-and-neck race between the two top Democrats vying to replace Rep. Jane Harman, who will make her resignation official next week.

The poll was conducted by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, commissioned by Progressive Change Campaign Committee and obtained by Roll Call. It shows California Secretary of State Debra Bowen leading Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn by 4 points, just outside the poll’s 3.3-point margin of error. The poll of 890 voters in the district was taken Feb. 17 and 18.

The poll attempted to show what would influence voters in the race. The results showed 28 percent would vote for a candidate who is “promising to create jobs” and 26 percent would vote for a candidate who is “promising to make government more transparent and accountable.” The next issue was 17 percent for a candidate who is “ promising to crack down on Wall Street and hold big corporations accountable.” The results also showed voters in the district think it is more important for government to create jobs than reduce the deficit: 51 percent to 40 percent.

Doesn't sound that way to me. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but 28%, 26% and 17% on the issues these stats are for don't strike me as strong at all; they're atrociously low results on the three related issues. What the heck is wrong with a large majority of the people who answered the poll questions?!

It might be helpful to see what those people prioritized over the three above issues, but they're critically important, so I wonder what could make the other issues that the poll included more important; if any were treated that way, that is. Perhaps ending the wars was one of the issues included in the poll and maybe it got a large or high statistical result, which it definitely should. But the three issues reported in the article definitely should have had much higher results than they got.

It's odd that people think that the government can't help to create jobs in industry; corporations and other businesses. The government shouldn't give out corporate welfare and everyone needs to oppose corp. welfare; but the government could or can help businesses in need of financing, as well as good ideas, for creating jobs. People should not only ask that the government create government jobs unless they're really justified and would be truly beneficial; but business needs to be properly regulated and should not receive welfare paid with taxpayer dollars. If political officials want to give welfare to corporations, then they should use their own money and not taxpayers' money.

Like Ralph Nader has said, it can be good and also important for the government to help corporations and other businesses, but this should or must not be done when the government refuses to properly or justly help the general population, citizens and other residents.

If at any time the population is in serious need of jobs and there's little or too little that can be done through the government helping businesses to create jobs, and it's not really justifiable to create government-paid jobs, then the government could help citizens to obtain very low-rate and fixed-rate loans for getting job training at low cost, as well as loans for starting small businesses and sole-proprietorships, f.e. I'm thinking of what I read about Gandhi, who provided loans to economically poor people with skills so that they could do something on their own to derive income from. He was apparently careful about who he'd accept to give very low-cost loans to, not wanting to give out welfare, say, but he apparently helped economically poor people to be able to start their own small businesses; like seamstress work, f.e. Perhaps he also helped people to start or improve in farming.

However it's done, the government can certainly help create jobs, especially when it's really needed, which it evidently is today.

Only 26% wanting the government to be more transparent and accountable is a ridiculously low poll result. What is wrong with the other 74% of the polled people or citizens? No one in a right state of mind could be against transparent and accountable government, which Washington is extremely far from being. Citizens against a truly transparent and accountable government in Washington basically are complicit in this rogue government's crimes.

What's with this population of sick voters? It's a bloody sick culture, society; incredibly! And that, I fear, does not bode well for truly good political candidates.

After 12 years of battling to stop Monsanto's genetically-engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation's organic farmland, the biggest retailers of "natural" and "organic" foods in the U.S., including Whole Foods Market (WFM), Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm, have agreed to stop opposing mass commercialization of GE crops, like Monsanto's controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa. In exchange for dropping their opposition, WFM has asking for "compensation" to be paid to organic farmers for "any losses related to the contamination of his crop." Under current laws, Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs) are not subject to any pre-market safety testing or labeling. WFM is abandoning its fight with biotech companies in part because two thirds of the products they sell are not certified organic anyway, but are really conventional, chemical-intensive and foods that may contain GMOs and that they market as "natural" despite this. Most consumers don't know the difference between "natural" and "certified organic" products. "Natural" products can come from crops and animals fed nutrients containing GMOs. "Certified Organic" products are GMO-free. WFM and their main distributor, United Natural Foods, maximize profits by selling products labeled "natural" at premium organic prices.

Support This Site

Buy Books

Get Gear

The log-in box below is only for bloggers. Nobody else will be able to log in because we have not figured out how to stop voluminous spam ruining the site. If you would like us to have the resources to figure that out please donate. If you would like to receive occasional emails please sign up. If you would like to be a blogger here please send your resume.

User login

Username: *

Password: *

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.